


the sky stirred

by kimaracretak



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Bajor, Gen, Murder, accidentally gets into twelve bar fights in defence of winn adami, everything is on fire in the best possible way, gore a lil bit, i'm having a bajoran moment don't touch me, me and my professional inability to let briefly glimpsed bad opinions go, pah-wraiths, this was a spite fic and these are not wholly serious tags but i'm UPSET, when bajor goes to war their gods smile deep inside them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 13:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7716076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(something moving in the emptiness / something drew me near / someone told me of my future deeds / whispered them in my ear): The fires took many, but she they gave back. And she is still Kai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sky stirred

**Author's Note:**

> [bangs fists on table] the sisko is not of bajor gul dukat is not of bajor neither of them have any business in the fire caves except to get eaten _it has been how many years and the ending of the pah-wraiths arc is still unforgiven_
> 
> title + summary quote from amorphis, 'sky is mine'

Dukat does not rise when the fires take him.

He is a gift, after all, and though there was a time they would have considered themselves above this, those who stayed in the sky are not the only ones who have learned these past seven years. He is a gift given freely, and as his skin blisters and cracks and tendrils of flame lap greedily at his spilt blood the walls shiver in triumph enough to drown his screams.

(It is a pity, she will think later, she wanted to hear his death-cries, his invader’s _pagh_ finally wrenched from his foreign bones and made to be devoured. No matter, she thinks in the moment, as warmth like she never knew could exist tumbles over her skin.)

The fires take her too. They rise from the caverns, rise in coloured ribbons streaking across her vision and pouring into her anywhere they can reach: open chest, open mouth, open eyes.

And she is —

— she is —

— and she is more than she has ever been, more than the Prophets had ever allowed Bajor to be. The world swells inside her and when she whispers _mine_ the fire agrees, _yours_ , a hundred million voices reaching out from her, for her.

When the false Emissary comes, he says, _I should have known the demon would be you_ , and she just smiles, smiles too widely with a mouth that is hers-not-hers and will always be.

 _Child,_ she says, because that is all he will ever be.

He burns too, but his is a stolen fire, one that he stumbled into and ripped away and made his, because his Federation does not know what it means to _belong_ , they only know what it is to _take._

He is a man possessed, but she, oh, she _is_ , and the very earth trembles with it, voices that had been raised to the false Temple when all along those who truly cared abided below the soil ( _we are of Bajor and will never leave Her for the void where starfire plays at being warmth_ ) gone quiet as she flings him to the sky.

(They will be shown their errors. They will be shown love. They will not burn.)

(Unless they refuse to understand.)

Nerys does not bow. Nerys comes to her open-handed and cold with the tang of a Cardassian station in her _pagh_.

My _child,_ Adami says, and caresses her free ear, and dares her to deny the claim. Nerys, too, fought for Bajor. There is still soil in her blood and sky in her eyes.

Nerys shivers and shuts her eyes and in the deep Caves that are now too silent she asks, _will Bajor remain?_

 _Yes,_ Adami says, and still she smiles. _Oh, yes, my child, she will ever remain._

It is easier, after that.

Cardassia bows first, because she has precious little to pay with and she _knows_ , and she is so very tired. She is too much dust to burn, but she shivers and shuts her eyes and behind curtains of fire Bajor turns her over and over thinks about the shape of galaxies to come.

The Federation takes longer to bow. She picks it apart slowly, listens to those who worked with it in those bleak days when it spun through Bajor’s skies on a stolen station. Some she lets run. Some learn how to join her. Some she lets the fires take.

The fires took many, but she they gave back.

And she is still Kai.

And Bajor still murmurs softly to its people.

And she still holds her children.


End file.
